IN CLEAN HOLLAND
Three days later I took passage to London, and that same afternoon
sailed for Rotterdam. At sunrise the next morning I climbed on deck, and
found the ship steaming slowly through a peaceful canal. On all sides
were flat plains, stretching as far as the eye could see. Far below us
were clusters of squat cottages with the white smoke of kindling fires
curling slowly upward from their chimneys. Here and there a peasant,
looking very tiny from our high deck, crawled along over the flat
meadows. In the distance clumsy windmills were turning slowly in the
morning breeze.
Our canal opened out into the busy harbor of Rotterdam. A customs
officer asked me where I was going, slapped me on the back in a fatherly
fashion, and warned me in German to look out for the “bad people” who
lay in wait for seamen ashore.
I quickly tired of the city, and turned out along the broad, flat
highway to Delft. The road ran along at the side of a great canal, and
at times crossed branch waterways half hidden by boats, filled with
cargo, toiling slowly by on their way to market and by empty boats
gliding easily homeward. On board, stout men bowed double over the poles
they use to push their craft along. On the bank, along the gravel path,
women strained like oxen at the tow-ropes around their shoulders.
In the early afternoon I passed through Delft, and pushed on toward The
Hague. Beyond Delft I turned into a narrow cobblestone roadway running
between two canals. It was a quiet route. I went on my lonely way,
thinking of many things and gazing off across the flat green country.
Suddenly a galloping “rat-a-tat” sounded close behind me. A runaway
horse! To pause and glance behind might cost me my life; for the crazed
brute was almost upon me. With a swiftness born of fear, I began to run!
Luckily, ahead of me I spied a foot-bridge over one of the canals. I
made one flying leap toward it, and reached it in safety just as there
dashed by me at full speed—a Hollander of some six summers, bound to
market with a basket on his arm!
After spending only a few hours in the interesting city of The Hague, I
looked for the highway to Leiden. I was not very successful in my search
for it, for the mixed language of German, English, and deaf-and-dumb
show with which I tried to make myself understood did not get me clear
directions. A road to Leiden was finally pointed out to me right enough,
but it was not a public highway. By some mistake, I set out along the
Queen’s private driveway, which led to the boyhood home of Rembrandt,
the great Dutch artist.
It was a pleasure to travel by the Queen’s own highway, of course,
especially as it led through a fragrant forest park. But, unfortunately,
there was no chance of finding an inn when hunger and darkness came on
me. There was not even a cross-road to lead me back to the public
highway, where I could find a place to eat and sleep. So I plodded on
deep into the lonely forest until night overtook me. Just what hour it
was when I reached Leiden, I could not tell. But it was certainly late;
for, except a few drowsy policemen, the good people, and even the bad,
were sound asleep. With a painful number of miles in my legs, I went to
bed on a pile of lumber.
[Illustration: A baker’s cart of Holland on the morning round.]
The warm sun awoke me early—before the first shopkeeper was astir. It
was Sunday, so I was not able to buy any food. Still hungry, I set off
toward Haarlem. On those flat lowlands it was disagreeably hot. Yet the
peasants, in their uncomfortable Sunday clothes, plodded for miles along
the dusty highway to the village church.
The men marched along sadly, as if they were going to prison. The women,
stout, and painfully awkward in their stiffly starched skirts, tramped
perspiringly behind the men. Even the children, the frolicking, romping
youngsters of the day before, were imprisoned in home-made
strait-jackets, and suffered discomfort in uncomplaining silence. Yet
one and all spoke a pleasant word to me as they passed.
Ever since leaving Rotterdam, I had noticed that there were no wells in
country places. I had so far been able to quench my thirst only in the
villages. But toward noon on this hot Sunday I became so thirsty that I
finally turned in at the only place in sight, a farm cottage. Beside the
road ran the ever-present canal. A narrow foot-bridge crossed it to the
gateway leading to the cottage. Around the house ran a branch of the
main waterway, giving the farmer a place to moor his canal-boat. I could
not open the gate, and I had to shout again and again before any one in
the house heard me. At last, from around the corner of the building a
very heavy woman came into view, bearing down upon me like an ocean
liner sailing into a calm harbor. I could not speak Dutch, but I did the
best I could. Perhaps the lady spoke some German, so I said: “Ein Glass
Wasser, bitte.”
“Vat?”
It could do no harm to give my mother tongue a trial:
“A glass of water.”
“Eh!”
I tried a mixture of the two languages:
“Ein glass of vater.”
This time she understood.
“Vater?” shrieked the lady, with such force that the rooster in the back
yard leaped sidewise a distance of six feet. “Vater!”
“Ja, Vater, bitte.”
A deep silence followed—a silence so intense that one could have heard a
fly pass by a hundred feet above. Slowly the lady placed a heavy hand on
the gate between us. Perhaps she was wondering if it were strong enough
to keep out the madman on the other side. Then, with a snort, she
wheeled about and waddled toward the house. Close under the eaves of the
cottage hung a tin basin. Snatching it down, she sailed for the canal
behind the house, stooped, dipped up a basinful of that very same
weed-clogged water that flowed by at my feet, and moved back across the
yard to offer it to me with a patient sigh. After that, whenever I
became thirsty, I got my drink from roadside canals after the manner of
beasts of the field—and Hollanders.
Long before I reached Haarlem, I came upon the great flower farms. I saw
more and more of these as I neared the town. I passed through the city
of tulips and out onto the broad, straight highway that leads to
Amsterdam. It ran as straight as a bee line to where it disappeared in a
fog of rising heat-waves. Throughout its length it was crowded with
vehicles, horseback riders, and, above all, with wheelmen who would not
turn aside an inch for me, but drove me again and again into the wayside
ditch.
I reached Amsterdam late in the afternoon; and, after much wandering in
and out among the canals, I found a room in a garret overhanging the
sluggish waterway. The place was clean, as we have heard all places are
in Holland, and there was a coffee-house close at hand, where eggs,
milk, cheeses, and dairy products of all kinds were served at small cost
and in cleanly surroundings.
I visited parks, museums, and the laborers’ quarters in Amsterdam, and
every evening spent a long time searching for my canal-side garret,
because it looked so much like other canal-side garrets.